Zen Habits: Inspiration on the Net

I read quite a few blogs. The vast majority of these blogs are technology based. See for yourself. But if you asked me what my absolute favorite blog was, the one that I look forward to reading the most week after week, it wouldn’t be technology based at all. My answer would be Zen Habits.

Zen Habits

Zen Habits is a motivational and, I think, inspirational website dedicated to abolishing bad habits and creating good habits. I think what I like most about this site, is the fact that the author, Leo, is just a regular person like you or me. He writes about the different techniques and philosophies he uses to improve various aspects of his life. Specifically, he writes about productivity, organization, finance, family, simplicity, happiness, and health. His two main philosophies seem to be GTD (get things done) and simplification. I’ve always been a big believer in the latter approach toward life, hence the reason why I think I’m so drawn to his website.

If improving your life is subject that interests you, and it should be, then I would highly, highly recommend checking out Zen Habits. It’s extremely well written and I always leave the site with a renewed sense of confidence.

Since my blogroll is comprised mostly of tech sites, it’s sometimes hard to weed out all the other non-tech blogs that I like to read. Here is a list of some other sites that are also dedicated to improving your life in one way or another.

43 Folders

Lifehack
Lifehacker
Pick The Brain
Get Rich Slowly
Dumb Little Man

I’m happy to see that all of the above websites also made it onto Leo’s blogroll. Of course, Leo has quite a few more self-improvement sites in his list than I do in mine. I’ll have to take a closer look at what he’s reading. If they’re even half as good as Zen Habits, then they would be worth a look.


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Good times on Father’s Day

Good times on Father’s Day is right, at least for my 6 month old nephew. For some reason, he finds my daughter to funnier than Will Ferrell, Jim Carey, and Elmo all put together.

Personally, I just think she spikes his oatmeal.


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Joe’s Goals dot com

joesgoals.com is website that allows you to create your own to do lists for anything you can think of. It’s a very simple, yet surprisingly useful little web app. Since this is the season for New Year’s resolutions, I thought I’d share this tool with you.

The website isn’t the most pleasing website to look at, but don’t let that deter you from trying it out. It’s well worth a look.

todo

There’s tagging, tracking reports, logs, all sorts of goodies.


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Call me Uncle Bob

My sister gave birth to a 10 pound baby boy on Christmas Eve, Donovan James McCarthy. This is her and her husband’s first baby and my first venture into unclehood. Needless to say, the entire family is ecstatic.

Donovan

Including my daughter who has had a sudden interest in babies over the last year or so. She’s already asking when she can babysit.

Cam and big D

Cam and lego Slave 1 In unrelated Christmas news, Cameron got the Lego Star Wars ships she asked for. The first one she got was Slave 1 (Boba Fett’s ship - duh, obviously) and the second one was the ever impressive Star Destroyer. She must have been good this year because Santa thought it was appropriate to spoil her rotten. — She really is a good kid though.

Cam and Lego Star DestroyerThe first set (Slave 1) has 537 pieces in it and took me over 5 hours to put together. The Star Destroyer has almost 1400 pieces in it. I haven’t even opened the box yet because, quite frankly, I’m scared. I predict it will take me the entire month of January to put that sucka together. Maybe even half of February too. But it should be fun, right? :) Lol, of course it will be.

In case I don’t post in the next couple of days, have a great New Year everybody. I have a good feeling about 2007… (famous last words?)


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MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everybody!!


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I’m back!!

I was going to blog from the ship, but I decided against it due to the hefty price tag. Even without blogging I managed to rack up $50 in internet charges. Blah!

The cruise was a blast and Bermuda was absolutely gorgeous. There’s more than just beauty there though, it’s an extremely fascinating country. Did you know that Bermuda has the highest per capita income in the world? Over 50% higher than that of the U.S.A. It shows too. Middle school kids were walking around with laptops and PDA’s. But enough about that.

Bermuda at nightThe food on the cruise was incredible. I seriously gained 5 pounds last week. Gourmet breakfast, gourmet lunches, and gourmet dinners everyday. If you wanted to skip the restaurant scene, they also offered buffets on the top deck three times a day. On the back of the boat they had a 24 hour grill that served hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pizza, and fries. The fries were fabulous; and they were even better at 3 in the morning. I’m not sure why. They had a chocolate buffet Friday night from 11:00 to midnight. I’m not a chocoholic by any means, but this set up would have impressed anyone. And of course there was 24 hour room service which we took full advantage of. So, in short, the food was great! The drinks were even better. We were drinking Bloody Marys, Dirty Bananas, Coco Locos, all kinds of foo foo drinks and more buckets of beer than could fit in our state room. Koj and I drank cognac and smoked Cubans on the back deck. That was great.

The first day in Bermuda we all hit the beach at Tobacco Bay. Tobacco Bay has this cool little cove, complete with its very own tiki bar. While we were in Bermuda the weather was close to perfect. On the way back to Boston we ended up hitting the tail end of a storm which kind of kicked the crap out of us. But let’s get back to the good weather.Tobacco Bay Tobacco Bay was really nice. As I’m sure you’d expect, the water was crystal clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Tropical fish were swimming all around us. That was pretty cool and yet, sort of freaky.

Meg and I broke off from the group every now and then and explored the Island. We had lunch in St. George on Tuesday and lunch in Hamilton on Thursday. Both cities are really unique. St. George, where our ship was docked, is a very quaint little city, whereas Hamilton, the capitol of Bermuda, was more of a conventional city. That didn’t take away from its charm, though.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was horseback riding. Meg and I went on an hour and a half guided tour of southern Bermuda all on horseback. My horse kicked ass. He was 1/3 Clydesdale, 1/3 Black Stallion, and 1/3 dragon. They say he was untameable. They say he killed men for fun. He was so fierce that they had to blind fold him so he wouldn’t kill me on site. Behold, the fiercest horse ever to set foot in Bermuda:

Buddy, the great black stallion

His name is Buddy. I think that’s somehow short for The Almighty Horse of Destruction. We bonded. He was much better than Meg’s stupid horse TJ. Who the hell names a horse TJ? But that’s neither here nor there. I enjoyed it so much that I think I’m going to look into horseback riding around here. I might even buy cowboy hat.

TJ,…please!

The WeddingWednesday was the wedding. The whole reason for going on the cruise. For me, it was by far the best day of the trip. The actual wedding was beautiful. The wedding dinner was fantastic. And the wedding reception was…. a bit fuzzy.

Koji and Michelle got married at the Grotto Resort which overlooks the ocean. It really was picture perfect. After the ceremony, we went back to the ship for dinner. I’m not exaggerating when I say I had the best piece of steak I’ve ever tasted in my life. I eat a lot of steak mind you. There was an open bar in the disco from 8:00 to 10:00. You’ll have to read about the rest of the night on another blog because I don’t really remember the details. I heard it was fun though.

Shane, Koji, and JackKoji just emailed me and said that they’re already planning another cruise for next year, this time to the Caribbean. Sign me up! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, cruises are worth every penny. If you ever have a chance to go on one, I would highly recommend it. I plan on taking an Alaskan cruise sometime before I die And I’ll definitely be doing a geek cruise in the foreseeable future. But for now it’s back to reality. I already miss everyone I went on the cruise with. There’s something about being isolated in the middle of the Atlantic that really brings people together. Or maybe it was the booze. But seriously, we couldn’t have gone with a better group of people. I uploaded over 350 pictures of the cruise, Bermuda, and the wedding to my flickr account. You can check them out here. Enjoy.

TOO THE DISCO!!!


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See you in a week!

We’re leaving for Bermuda today on the Norwegian Majesty. It’s a wedding cruise for Koji and Michelle, so there’s about 40 of us going. I hope we don’t sink the boat. :)

 Norwegian Majesty

Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pics as the week goes on. I even brought my laptop to do a little writing. That is, of course, assuming that internet access isn’t something ridiculous like $100.00 an hour. In that case….. see you when I get back.


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Lazy rainy weekend coming

And I’m really looking forward to it! Get this, I’ve been sick now for exactly 3 weeks and 1 day. Yeah! I finally got off my stubborn ass and went to the doctor today. To top it off, life has been extra hectic the last couple of weeks. A nice relaxing weekend of watching TV and playing video games with my daughter is just what the doctor ordered. Not the real doctor of course, he put me on Zithromax.

There are two specific things on this weekend’s agenda that Cameron and I are particularly excited about. By the way, it’s a beautiful thing when you and your 8 year old daughter start getting excited about the same things. She’s turning out to be quite a geek. But I digress.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Friday night is the season premier of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and boy do we love Avatar. Cam and I watched seasons 1 & 2 religiously. I know what you’re thinking, it’s a cartoon, but trust me, it’s great. I don’t watch many cartoons, let alone look forward to them, but this show is close to perfect. It has an ongoing plot that really keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it never gets too serious. There’s action, lore, humor, a surprisingly deep storyline, and best of all, it’s great for all ages. So to recap; season premiere, great show, don’t call us Friday night between 8:00 and 9:00.

Star Wars Lego II

Next on the agenda at Geekfest 2006 is Lego Star Wars II for the Nintendo Gamecube. Oh yeah! Cam may have turned me on to Avatar, but I introduced her to the ever so exciting and titillating world of Star Wars. What do you get when you combine Star Wars with Legos and the Gamecube? Hours of brainless stimulating fun. Needless to say, we blew through the first game in no time. Like Avatar, Lego Star Wars is great entertainment for all ages. It really is. We can’t wait.

So this is our lazy rainy weekend. Not too shabby, huh? After this it’s back to business, so we better enjoy it while we can. Oh, and we will. ;)


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